


When Ashes Fall And Are Mistaken For Snow

by Lady_MidnightII



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And he isn't even seen in the story, Blackouts, Charles Sees Dead People, Charles is a Genius, Child!Erik, Codependency, Dark Past, Erik has Issues, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, I Blame Stephen King, If Someone Wants, Implied Slash, Implied Underage, M/M, Memory Ghost, Memory Related, Mentions of homicide, Might Be A Story, Murder, Shaw is Creepy, Supernatural Elements, This Went In a Weird Direction, Winter, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 05:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1497823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_MidnightII/pseuds/Lady_MidnightII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles has a gift, a bit of a, shining, you could say.  He sees things long since past, people long dead, memories sewed to places, like pictures in an old book.  What happens when the ghost of a little boy isn't a ghost at all?<br/>Or that one where Charles sees ghosts and memories, and Erik isn't dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Ashes Fall And Are Mistaken For Snow

**Author's Note:**

> So, my inspiration came from Stephen King's Strawberry Spring and The Little Sisters of Eluria; add my own recipe, some snow, dark themes, and damaged Erik, and you get this. Kind of went on a murder and more Shining tangent than I planned, but that's okay. I don't own anything but the story, so kudos, comment, and most importantly, enjoy!

* * *

Charles sits on a park bench in Berlin, the warm breeze a welcome touch on his skin. The day is bright and soft, the hollows of the once barren land filled out with green leaves and grass, white cumulonimbus clouds, and the laughter of children mingling with the yellow sunshine. It is a sunny day as compared to gloomy London, and he intends to enjoy it to the fullest. He leafs through his papers on heredity and chromosomes and x-genes, excited to lecture to other distinguished professors of Genetics at the University of Berlin. He hopes his work will be taken as seriously as it has been in the states, but one can never be sure.

Although he has explained, to the best of his ability, why certain gene codes change and make the deciding factor, the x-gene, he still isn't certain it is as accurate or clear as he wants. After all, there are so many secrets and exceptions that are hidden, locked away in the farthest corners of life itself, even to his own brilliant mind that sees things as they happen and have happened. He puts the folders and books back into his bag, settling down with his spine to the bench wood to drink in the sunshine.

He looks around the park. He sees children playing in groups, walking around in pairs or with their parents, and it makes him smile. Then, far off in the corner, by an old oak tree, he sees a young boy, all growing limbs and coltish strides appear from the woods, as if from nowhere. The sun bounces off the boy’s pale hair, lending a halo effect. He looks out of place in all the warmth fluttering through the air, the greenery sapping him of color; his cheeks are red, as is the tip of his nose.

He walks over to where Charles sits, a good foot away, and Charles-he blinks in surprise- knows now what sets him apart from the other children: his hair is long, combed over like his own father’s had been in the thirties. He is wearing boots, worn, thick socks tucked into them. He’s dressed for winter; coat, scarf, gloves and all. The red in his face is the blush of winter’s cold cries. It’s as if he had leaped right through time.

A few moments of silence. The boy looks around resignedly and sighs. Charles asks, “Why do you have a coat on, my young friend?”

The brunette glances around. “It’s spring.”

At first, the boy doesn't answer; but then, he looks up, and Charles is met with the widest, gentlest, and most beautiful eyes he has ever seen; the most old, tortured ones, too, and in a face so sweet. Before he can jerk away in surprise, one small, bony hand grasps his wrist. The strength there is too much, so unexpected from such a frail and skinny-looking thing as him.

And the moment it makes contact -freezing to the touch and soft like a memory of the dead- he knows this isn't happening.

It isn't real.

“I've been waiting for the winter all this time,” the boy whispers, a hint of the German accent he’s been hearing all around him the past week present,

“it’s coming soon. Before then, we’ll bury the parts before the earth gets too cold, and keep their bones to burn, their meat to cure, just like you showed me, Herr Seb. You’ll teach me how to butcher soon, won’t you? I’ll be neat and clean; I’m a good boy, Herr Seb, please? Let me? I want to learn. To please you.”

Charles chokes softly in his throat, his small consciousness swept up in the tidal wave of the boy’s grey-green eyes, confusion and memories and past events that aren't his and never were suddenly piling into his head all at once; images of a young boy in a camp and a man in white; a cabin in the Alps, edelweiss blooming in the bloodstained grass, born to the music of screams and gurgles along the bubbling stream; a tree stump marked with dark ax cuts, saturated and stained with something like thick red wine; dark winter nights by the fire; darker, snowy ecstasy, mapped in trails of red and spots of black and blue, carved into scarred, soft white parchment; dark promises whispered in that darkness when the stars were too ashamed to show their faces; layered over it all, a name; growled and murmured and sighed and sing-songed like a prelude to a flood of blood: _My Little Erik Lehnsherr._

The lights go out, and all Charles can see is those mournful green-grey eyes, _Little Erik Lehnsherr_ ringing like an old record on repeat in his ears.

 

It seems like forever, swimming up from the distorted, heavy blackness he is surrounded in; but his eyes open, and baby blue meets white. Charles squints automatically, waiting for his eyes to adjust until he can sit up and look around properly. A hospital, where he usually ends up when a vision is over.

He becomes aware of hand grasping his tightly, and he smiles at the familiar pale face, gone from creased with worry to bright with relief.

“Raven, dear sister, I’m glad to see you. Thank you for getting me to the hospital. I’m fine now though, truly.”

“I don’t care if you’re feeling fine now, I’m keeping you here for at least the next day so the doctors can observe your brain,” retorts Raven, beaming down at him with the severe yet gentle love only a sister can deliver. “Just be careful, okay? At least you were in public this time.”

She sighs when Charles smiles apologetically. “I’ll try, sister.”

“By the way, now that you’re up, who’s Erik Lehnsherr?”

“Who?” asks Charles, blinking in puzzlement.

“When they brought you into the emergency room, you just kept saying that, over and over again, like you were scared, but not of him. You don’t remember?”

“No. I remember… Pieces of his life, I suppose, but not the name. It wasn’t pretty.” Charles bites his lip, and says softly, “You know what happened.”

“Yes, I do,” she answers evenly. This is their private agreement, silent but always there, hovering. His need to know outweighs her instinct to protect.

“Then you know what to do.”

She leaves promptly, heading to the nurses’ station to see about her brother’s laptop.  The mystery and its actors have been set into motion.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if I want this to be a long fic yet, as I'm still caught up with Kuss Des Todes, which will eventually be finished, I promise. Just to let you know, I'm stalled up for a lot of the summer and won't be able to write. Anyway, so, yeah, tell me what you think, if this should be a short story or what.


End file.
